Scrap company acquires two Encore Recycling facilities, including a shredder.

Portland, Oregon-based Schnitzer Steel Industries Inc. says it has purchased the operating assets of Encore Recycling LLC, comprising two facilities in the Atlanta metropolitan area. One of the two facilities includes a metal shredding operation and Encore also has a recycled auto parts center.

Founded in 2013, Jefferson, Georgia-based Encore purchases and processes end-of-life vehicles, appliances, and additional ferrous and nonferrous materials from local recycling companies and industrial, commercial, and individual customers, says Schnitzer.

“Encore sells its recycled products to steel mills and foundries throughout the Southeast, the fastest growing steel and industrial manufacturing region in the country,” adds the multi-location acquiring firm.

The acquisition of Encore’s assets follows Schnitzer’s 2021 purchase of eight recycling facilities from Columbus Recycling and expands the company’s Southeastern regional footprint to 24 recycling facilities in Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi and Tennessee, says the firm.

“The acquisition of Encore will expand our platform and offerings in the robust Southeast market by establishing our first shredding operation in the region with immediate scale and meaningful synergies,” says Tamara Lundgren, board chair and CEO of Schnitzer.

“This purchase builds upon our recent strategic investments including our recently opened state-of-the-art heavy media plant in Macon, Georgia, and the purchase of eight recycling facilities from Columbus Recycling last October,” she continues. “The addition of the Encore assets is consistent with our growth strategy to expand metals recycling operations to meet anticipated increases in steel and nonferrous metals demand driven in part by the global transition to low-carbon technologies. While a variety of solutions will be required as industries, communities, and governments actively pursue carbon reduction, the increased use of recycled metals is one path that is immediately achievable.”

In 2021, the Encore facilities processed approximately 90,000 tons of ferrous scrap and 7,000 tons of nonferrous scrap, partially arising from its handling of 20,000 end-of life vehicles.

Schnitzer says it plans to make capital and other investments at the acquired facilities, including for environmental projects and programs such as a shredder enclosure and emission control system, stormwater infrastructure upgrades, and implementation of a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency approved refrigerant recovery management program.

European effort uses solvent-based technology to create new polymers from mixed plastic scrap.

The Barcelona-based effort known as the MultiCycle project recently hosted an event to demonstrate technology it says culminated from 42 months of international collaboration “to demonstrate the Circular Economy for plastics in action.”

The April 7 event in Ghent, Belgium, displayed what the group calls “an industrial recycling pilot plant for thermoplastic-based multimaterials” that provides “selective recovery of pure single plastic recyclates and fibers from mixed wastes.”

Finished products resulting from the MultiCycle process can be used in “high-end applications in two important industrial segments – flexible multilayer films for packaging products and fiber-reinforced thermoplastic composites in the automotive sector,” according to MultiCyle.

Its CreaSolv process “purifies polymers by physical means via selective dissolution, with advanced digitalization methods for feedstock identification, process monitoring and control,” states MultiCycle. One demonstration-level application involved the use in a blown film process of polyethylene (PE) recycled polymers “sourced from commingled, printed flexibles from household municipal waste without special pre-sorting,” adds the group.

A second project entailed the “successful substitution of polypropylene (PP) and polyamide (PA) recyclate-based formulations into sheet laminate and hybrid composite injection molding processes for a reinforced car battery carrier,” says MultiCycle.

“Building upon the operational experience gained, the project’s sustainability and techno-economic analyses have provided the basis for recommendations towards future upscaling, and the project has also produced policy recommendations promoting waste management and resource efficiency improvements for the target packaging and automotive applications,” concludes MultiCycle.       

Presentations from MultiCycle’s event and case studies are available to download from the MutliCycle website.

Recycling association chapter also reports success of prior scholarship winner.

The Northern Ohio Chapter of the Washington-based Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI) is hosting a river cruise event in early June. The chapter also has reported on the follow-up success of one of its earlier college scholarship winners.

On Thursday, June 9, the ISRI chapter is inviting its members and others interested in networking to join it for a cruise on the Goodtime III vessel on the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland.

ISRI Northern Ohio describes the three-hour evening cruise as a “fantastic networking event [on] Lake Erie and the Cuyahoga River with ever-changing views of downtown Cleveland” and the nearby Flats district. Those interested in registering can do so on this web page.

The ISRI chapter also has sent out an e-mail message letting its members know that an ISRI Northern Ohio scholarship winner from 2019 has been recently admitted as a radiologist resident doctor in the Columbia University/New York Presbyterian hospital program.

Dylan Tan is the son of Ruby and Alfred Tan, and Alfred works for Toledo Shredding LLC/ ProTrade Steel Co. of Toledo, Ohio. Dylan is now on track to become a radiologist working at a Columbia University-affiliated campus in Manhattan.

After obtaining an undergraduate degree from Harvard University, Dylan Tan went to Hofstra University’s Zucker School of Medicine in Hempstead, New York.

New Jersey-based paper recycling firm raises nearly $40,000 for March of Dimes.

Pine Brook, New Jersey-based Wilmington Paper Corp. (WPC) says it ranked as the leading fundraiser in New Jersey among companies, schools and teams after the 2022 March of Dimes “March for Babies Walk” event. That fundraiser took place Sunday, April 24, at the Meadowlands Racetrack in New Jersey.

Wilmington Paper has raised more than $38,000 this year, which it says is the fourth year of its sponsorship of the March for Babies event. WPC President Brett Lurie and the company’s head of data analytics and Information Josh Lurie served as team captains for the fundraising effort.

According to WPC, the two Lurie family members also are “among the top individual fundraisers in New Jersey, along with Senior Director of Trading and Export Marketing Philip Bellafiore and Director of Digital Media, Marketing and Public Relations David Tratner.”

Overall, the state of New Jersey March for Babies event has raised over $454,000, says WPC.

For the Lurie family, whose third-generation family business was founded in 1977, the March of Dimes cause is personal, says the company.

“Becoming a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) family was never in our plans,” says Josh Lurie, whose wife Erin welcomed twins Ruby and Cora born just 32 weeks into their term in December 2019. The twins spent four weeks in the NICU.

“My involvement with March of Dimes and having the opportunity to tour NICU facilities to see firsthand the incredible work these doctors and nurses perform day in and day out, I knew that our babies were in the best possible place they could be,” comments Josh.

Ruby and Cora, now two, were out walking with the Wilmington Paper team that came out to the Meadowlands in late April.

“Our story is not unique, and with the incredibly high rate of premature births in America, families like ours need all the help they can get to make sure all moms and babies are healthy,” adds Josh.

Containerboard output in the U.S. rose 2 percent over year-ago levels, says AF&PA, and boxboard mills are busier.

The Washington-based American Forest & Paper Association (AF&PA) says output of containerboard in the United States rose by 2 percent in the first quarter of this year compared with the first three months of 2021.

The boxboard mill operating rate was 94 percent in the first quarter of this year, which AF&PA says is up 2 points from the 92 percent capacity rate in the first quarter of 2021. Recycled-content boxboard output in this year’s first quarter increased by 3 percent compared with the first quarter of last year, says the association.

In the containerboard sector, mills operated at a 94.3 percent rate, which AF&PA calls “essentially flat (+0.4 pts.)” compared with the first quarter of 2021.

The production of containerboard for export early this year increased by 9 percent compared with the first three months of last year, the group adds.

Mill inventories of containerboard at the end of March decreased 102,000 short tons compared with the end of the 2021 calendar year but were up 63,000 short tons compared with March 31, 2021.

In March of this year, even printing and writing (P&W) papers enjoyed a demand boost, with the AFA&PA reporting a 1 percent year-on-year increase in shipments for the month compared with March 2021. “U.S. purchases of total printing-writing papers increased 3 percent in March [2022] compared to the same month last year,” states AF&PA.